[00:00:31] Speaker A: If you dig the twisted, admired, the outlandish, and are enamored by the unusual, you're in the right place. True crime, the supernatural, the unexplained. Now you're speaking our language. If you agree, join us as we dive into the darker side. You know, because it's more fun over here. Welcome to Total Conundrum.
[00:00:58] Speaker B: Warning.
[00:00:59] Speaker C: Some listeners may find the following content disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.
[00:01:10] Speaker B: Hey, y'all, welcome back to Total Conundrum. Today we've got a special treat for you. We're diving into the wild west with none other than John from dairyland frats.
[00:01:23] Speaker A: That's right, we're wrangling up some tales of the old west, starting with the infamous Seth Bullock and the spooky shenanigans at the Bullock Hotel.
[00:01:32] Speaker B: I heard Seth wasn't just wrangling cattle, he was roping in ghosts, too.
[00:01:37] Speaker A: You got it, Tracy. And who better to help us navigate through the dusted trails of history than our friend John? He knows more about ghosts than Casper himself.
[00:01:47] Speaker B: So saddle up, folks. It's going to be a root and toot and ride through the haunted halls of the Bullock Hotel with total conundrum. And dairy land. Frieds. Yeehaw.
[00:01:59] Speaker A: And don't forget, folks, wrangle that like, button, lasso that. Subscribe and round up those ratings and reviews on Apple and Spotify. Let's keep this adventure going and stay.
[00:02:11] Speaker B: Tuned because we got some exciting trailers coming your way featuring the Young Dads podcast and beyond the shadows. You won't want to miss it.
[00:02:21] Speaker A: We'll be back after these messages.
[00:02:29] Speaker D: Welcome to the Young dad podcast, where fatherhood meets new adventures, challenges, and a lot of learning. I'm your host, Jay. Join us every week as we dive into hopa and cultural topics, mental health, all the stories, struggles, and triumphs of modern fatherhood. From changing diapers at 02:00 a.m. To balancing work and playtime, we're here to share, laugh, and grow together.
Whether you're a new dad, a seasoned pro, or just interested in the fatherhood journey, Young dad podcast is your Goto podcast. We bring experts, share tips, and most importantly, connect you with a community of fathers walking the same path. So grab a juice box, grab a snack, plug in, relax, and embark on this journey together.
Subscribe to the young dad podcast on your favorite podcast platform and never miss an episode because being a young dad is just the beginning of an incredible story.
Young dad podcast where fatherhood begins.
[00:03:30] Speaker B: Hey, everybody, we have a special treat for you today. We have John from Dairyland frights. And as you'll notice, we are missing a person. Jeremy's not feeling very good, so we decided to go ahead because we already had to reschedule this crossover once because I was sick. So we're just going to go with it today. But. Hey, John, how are you?
[00:03:56] Speaker C: I'm doing really great. Thank you again for having me on. And eventually maybe we'll have to have all three of us on once we all feel good.
[00:04:04] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:04:07] Speaker C: So a little bit. I was going to say, we're midwest people, right? You're from Minnesota. I'm from Wisconsin.
[00:04:14] Speaker B: You're our neighbor.
So the ultimate question. Vikings are packers.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Oh, come on.
[00:04:23] Speaker B: Packers.
[00:04:24] Speaker C: You're killing me.
[00:04:27] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm Jeremy today, as you see in my lower thirds.
That is funny. No, there are some Wisconsin people that are vikings fans and vice.
I always, I'm always curious.
[00:04:43] Speaker C: It's all good fun.
[00:04:45] Speaker B: Yeah. So why don't you tell us a little bit about your show and how you got into podcasting.
[00:04:52] Speaker C: Yeah. So really the main thing is I always loved the paranormal. I kind of grew up with my mom, actually. She loved the paranormal too, which I always thought was really kind of funny. She would read these book about ghosts and about Ed Gein, serial killers in front of me when I was like eight.
And I'd say to my mom, hey, mom, what's that all about? And she would not shy away. She'd be like, well, honey, this is about this and ghost. It was about this ghost. So I really got my love from my mom. She passed away about three years ago. So one of the things I was like, when I do this podcast, I'm kind of doing the spirit of my mom, too, because I know she would have loved to listen to this podcast and hear all the stories and everything. And the other thing too is I have some friends who are in the paranormal and we used to talk about it all the time. And then one day I said, you know what? I think I'm going to do a podcast about it because I have all these great stories and all these great friends who love listening to the podcast as well as I found a great community, especially, like I said with you, Tracy, and all these other people who love it as much as I do, and especially in the midwest.
One of the things I wanted to do with my shows, I wanted to focus on the midwest is people take it for granted because we're flyover state, right? You fly over us. Maybe occasionally you come here to see the fall, changing of colors or go fishing. But most people don't view the midwest as frightening or scary.
And that's totally wrong. There are so many great stories here, so many great places that you can visit that are haunted and scary as heck, that you would not think about it because. Right. You think about bigger states, right? You think of New York, California, Texas. But, man, we have some pretty frightening.
[00:06:59] Speaker B: Yeah, right. No, we definitely some. There's actually a sanatorium for sale.
I think it's in Pine county, which is right on the border. Wisconsin and Minnesota, that's for sale right now. And Jeremy keeps saying we should buy. I'm like, no, no, we shouldn't.
I don't need to own a piece of.
[00:07:30] Speaker C: It'd be. It'd be cool for a while, and then you'd be like, oh, we got to take care of it, too, so it doesn't collapse and kill people and hopefully hates.
Right, exactly. So, you know, my podcast, like I said, dairyland frights focuses on predominantly the midwest. Occasionally we have stories from outside of the Midwest. Some guests like to talk about. We've had guests from Canada, guests from California, New York, Texas, who like to talk about their stuff, which is fine. It's great. But I always just really like Tracy just to kind of focus on the midwest and really let people know.
Know. Hey, there's some cool places you should check out here. And especially in the Midwest, a lot of people aren't familiar with it. And really quickly, one of my favorite places is a place called Summer Wind.
It's this mansion up in northern Wisconsin, and it's not there anymore because it has mysteriously burned down.
But it used to be this gorgeous mansion off the lake. I mean, just think about just this beautiful mansion. You're next to a lake, and it's just unbelievable scenery. And you're in the middle of this beautiful rolling hills and lush forest. Yeah, they built it on top of a burial ground. Indian burial ground.
[00:08:58] Speaker B: Whoops. Yeah.
[00:09:02] Speaker C: It was cursed, by the way, the tribe who was there, basically, like we always do, we kick them out and we take over the nice places. Hey, come on. We're bad people sometimes.
And so they put a curse on the land. Well, these richer, wealthier people, in the 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds, built this mansion there. And then all these strange things started to happen. Also, there's this great story about this family who bought this, like, really cheap, and they go and buy it, and the father goes insane and winds up threatening the family and everything, and they have to move out. It's a crazy story.
It's not there anymore because, like, I said, it's been burned down. There's very few, how do I say, remnants of it left.
[00:09:52] Speaker B: Right.
[00:09:52] Speaker C: But it just was like you never thought about. Never. You were thinking mansions in New York, mansions in LA. But this crazy story of these people who bought this mansion on this indian burial ground, and all these terrible things that have befallen people again, that's why I love the Midwest. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.
[00:10:12] Speaker B: Well, it's like the glenching mansion in Duluth. Have you covered that?
[00:10:18] Speaker C: No. No.
[00:10:19] Speaker B: Okay, well, that one gets really interesting, because it not only was there the murder at the, um. The lady went on to cause all sorts of havoc, and she actually ended up in mound, Minnesota. And that's where Jeremy grew up, was in mound.
And there's other things that connect with mound as well. And that's like, mound is kind of. I don't know if you've heard of Lake Minnetonka. That's like one of the most commercialized lakes in Minnesota.
Yeah. So mound is. Right. A town right off of Lake Minnetonka. And so a lot of weird things have happened there, too. But, yeah, we definitely. In the Midwest, there are a lot.
Like I was saying on your show, Jeremy and I went and investigated poor farm cemetery in Duluth, and that had, what, 4700 and some people buried there, and all of them marked with a little tiny cement piece that was stamped. And when you walk in there, you have to walk down this long path to get in there. And when you walk back there, you wouldn't even know it was a cemetery. There was only one thing standing up. It was like a little tiny shepherd's hook. And there was only, I think, two or three actual gravestones. The rest were just these tiny little cement markers, which are sad, because if somebody doesn't go in there and take care of it, they're all going to be covered. And they were marked with basically a row and a plot number. And Jeremy actually printed out the names and everything that go with it.
But, yeah, you have that haunted ship in Duluth. I mean, you've got haunted stuff all over the place.
[00:12:13] Speaker C: All over. And not to mention cryptids.
[00:12:18] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:12:18] Speaker C: So we have beast of Bray Road. We have the hodag in Minnesota. What do you guys have?
[00:12:25] Speaker B: We have supposedly have Bigfoot. We have the. I always say it wrong. The Windingo.
[00:12:31] Speaker C: Windigo.
[00:12:32] Speaker B: Windigo. There you go. We have the Windigo. Supposedly we have a dog. Man. I did a cryptid episode not that long ago, too. I'm trying to think of every thing that was on there.
[00:12:50] Speaker C: Probably. I bet you have to have a lake serpent.
[00:12:55] Speaker B: Oh, yeah, a couple of them. Yeah, we have peppy from Lake Peppin, and there's another one from up north. Yeah, we definitely have the lake monsters, as you know, are probably like the big eel pout or whatever.
[00:13:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:13:12] Speaker B: But, yeah, there are some lake monsters. Definitely. Yeah. I wish I had that episode in front of was I went over quite a few of different ones, and a lot of them are crossovers that other people like our Bigfoot is the skunk ape in Florida. And we had a with Nash Hoover from chasing legends. That'll be coming out on two weeks. Well, it's going to be out by the time this episode goes out, so I guess I shouldn't date it because this episode will come out after the fact. But he talks about the differences with the regional Bigfoots and stuff like that, and he goes on with more of a scientific belief versus supernatural. So it was kind of fun and refreshing to hear a different viewpoint on it because some people think that Bigfoots are so elusive because they come through portals, and you've got the scientific side of it that says, no, they're not portals.
So it was kind of fun to hear the different views of it that I haven't heard before.
[00:14:25] Speaker C: Yeah. And not only that, but we also have ufos. You've had UFO encounters, right?
[00:14:32] Speaker B: Yes. I've never had one, but they're definitely.
[00:14:35] Speaker C: Yeah, I've never had one. We've had some major ones, like in Wisconsin. There was one off of one of our Sturgeon Bay, where the UFO was supposed to be the size of two football fields. And, like, 75 people witnessed this in the 1940s. And I was just like, wow, that's crazy.
[00:15:00] Speaker B: There was a video I saw recently.
I had put it in our trailer trade group, I think, at one point, but it was something that shot across the sky in northern Minnesota, and it was caught by people's ring doorbells, and it was this light that just went shooting. And then all of a sudden, it was off a screen, and then you heard a loud, just a massive boom, and nobody knows what it was.
[00:15:33] Speaker C: Wow.
[00:15:34] Speaker B: It is crazy. You can't fake a ring doorbell.
[00:15:39] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Yeah. There's no way you can. It's just recording all the time. It's not like you can edit. Yeah. So that's what I love about doing my podcast, is I just focus on that and sometimes outside, and then I love having the guests on, like yourself.
Yeah, so do I. One of my favorite ones, I did have a practicing witch from the Netherlands. She was on the show and she was super interesting because her culture and our culture are totally ends of the spectrum.
[00:16:12] Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
[00:16:13] Speaker C: They don't have Ouija boards in the Netherlands. They just don't.
However, they have so many legends, they have so many deep, I don't know, stories into evil and good know. This is the place where the gods know, like Thor, all the norwegian gods, Odin and Thor. You know what I'm saying? It's crazy.
The funny thing was, and I'm going to do an episode about this is so she's a practicing satanist. Okay.
And it's not what you think. I've met Satan, and they're not people who kill babies. No, they don't bathe in blood. They're some of the nicest people around. And the reason she is is because, one, she's always had trouble fitting in. She's always had issues with, I don't know, just confidence. But talking to people like her who are like, hey, just be yourself. You're a good person. You're a fine person. Don't worry about conforming to this or to that. Right, right.
[00:17:25] Speaker B: Different definitions to certain things, and then you've got the satanic panic of the really put things in a horrible perspective. I know. I heard. I think it was on Kevin where the weird ones are. He had a red witch.
And if I remember correctly, she practiced both light and dark magic, but not.
Not darkness and evil. But she's like, where there's light, you need dark, you need that balance. So I think she called herself, it was either a red mage or a red witch. I can't recall now, but it was really interesting because I don't know a lot about witchcraft. I don't know.
And it's very cool to.
With all these different podcasts that we are all a part of, I try to binge everyone's podcasts and get caught up, but there's so many of us now that I'm going where I'm listening to, just a few at a time, and then I'll go back and catch up because I love knowing the personality of the person that we're crossing over with and dealing with and stuff. And I learned so much, so much about people and different things that I never knew about. So it's very cool.
[00:18:49] Speaker C: Absolutely.
So before we get to the subject at hand, just really quick, I would tell all my spooky friends out there and your audience, you can find me on Instagram, YouTube, Facebook.
Also, I have trying to think what else I have like podbean is my host, which I use. And don't feel afraid if you got a really scary story you want to share with me. I'm
[email protected]. So just send me something. If you have a spooky story or maybe a topic you want to cover, that'd be great.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Definitely.
There's cold case in I can't remember what town it is right now.
We had a listener suggestion on this case. Never heard of it, but it's in Minnesota and it's a cold case from the trying to, there's a person who runs the Facebook page and they're getting very close to solving the case. And I've been trying to correspond with this lady to have her on because there's nobody better to tell the story than somebody who's been researching it for all these years. And that was one of our listener suggestions from Crystal. And so I've been trying to get that one going and I'm very excited to have this lady on, but right now she's a snowbird and so she's very busy playing golf and all the things in Florida and her available times do not correspond with mine. So I'm hoping once she's back in Minnesota, she'll have a little bit more availability to do that. But I'm excited to do that one. I think that's going to be very cool.
Cold cases just blow my mind. And I want to solve.
[00:20:48] Speaker C: By the way, since we're from, again, from Minnesota and from Wisconsin, from the Midwest, we'll try not to use our accents too much. Like were talking, we were laughing at that. Me and Tracy were laughing at my podcast. When that's out, share with my audience. We're like, yeah. Oh, you betcha, don't you?
[00:21:11] Speaker B: One of the groups that's in our, we have a trailer trade group that we all kind of trade each other's podcast trailers and stuff and chat in that group quite a bit. And one of the podcasts is Zach solve mysteries. And they go on and with their podcast, they watch all the old unsolved mysteries and Zach solves them. And they were watching one.
And both of them are both Stephanie and Zach are very good at doing accents. And Stephanie was doing a Fargo accent and I was just like, I hate that movie. I hate that people think that everyone in Minnesota, yes, we do have some of it, but it's more way northern Minnesota and northern Wisconsin that really get into that. And then the closer you get to Canada, yes, we are Canada's neighbors. But we don't say process. We don't say a boot.
Yeah, a boot.
But anyway, I messaged her after listening to that episode, and I'm like, I hate Fargo. And I hate that people think that everyone from the Midwest sounds like that, because, yes, we have some of those accents, and sometimes they'll come out strong, but most of the time, it's like, I don't hear a difference in my voice versus somebody from California, honestly. But they certainly do.
We went on a really long road trip. We went from Minnesota to Tennessee to help my in laws move. And when we were leaving, we decided not to take the same route back. We went from down to Georgia, Alabama, over to Mississippi, Louisiana, Texas, and then back up. And every state we went into, they all had a different term of know. Sweetheart, honey, baby, whatever. Yeah. And their accent changed in every state. But every gas station I went into, they're like, where are you from? And I'm like, minnesota. They're like, say it again. I'm like, minnesota.
So obviously, I don't hear what they hear.
[00:23:41] Speaker C: I don't either.
I'm right with you, Tracy. So I'm in sales and marketing, so I do a lot of traveling and stuff like that. And I'll go down to Florida and people just be like, I love your accent. And I'm just, what?
What are you talking about? And they'll say, cheese.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[00:24:03] Speaker C: I'll be like, cheese.
[00:24:05] Speaker B: Say bag. Bags.
[00:24:08] Speaker C: Yeah, absolutely. And what the funny thing, when I was down, like, I've been in the south, that was part of my sales territory for a while. And I went to Savannah, Georgia. And Savannah, Georgia is one of the most haunted places in America. Like, literally every place is haunted. And I always tell this as a joke, but it actually was true. So I went into a sonic drive in. It's basically like a culver's for the know or whatever you have in Minnesota now. And I went in there and I joked. I said, hi, is that bathroom haunted? And the manager just looked at me. He. Yep.
And I said, you're kidding me. And he's, you know, they were using their accents. And I came from a ghost tour. I remember this Foley. I came from this ghost tour, and I was walking alone. And I guess in Savannah. You're not supposed to walk alone in Savannah, Georgia, okay. Because a high crime rate and some other things. So I walked home and I walked into the hotel. It was like a Marriott or whatever. And the lady goes, you didn't walk home alone, did you? And I said, yeah, and she goes like, don't ever do that again, darlin she's like, you need somebody with you. And then she looked at me and she goes, do you have a spirit attached to you? And I went, I don't think so.
I don't think so. She goes, well, just be careful. Did you walk past the graveyard in downtown Savannah, which is just crazy haunted? I said, yeah. And she goes, okay. She goes, well, just let me know if you have any problems. I know some people can remove the spirit from you and it's just like them.
Normal conversation, like, that's haunted. This is haunted.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Ghosts, Savannah, are just hitchhiking on people going from place to.
[00:26:02] Speaker C: So I guess so. And it's just weird though, because everyone had a different dialect, everyone have a different thing. But one thing that they all believed in was the paranormal. They grew up, they know it. And they'll talk your ear off about all the crazy stories they have. And I'm like, oh, interesting.
[00:26:21] Speaker B: Well, it's like Louisiana. We went to New Orleans on that road trip back. We spent a few hours.
My youngest daughter had never seen the ocean. That's why we went the way we did. Because we went to Orange beach in Alabama, brought her to the gulf so she could see the ocean, swam in the ocean, drove to Mississippi, stayed in a hotel, got up that morning, went to St. Martin's, I think it was, and did a swamp tour in Louisiana. And then we went back and then we had limited time, so we just booked was like ghost witches.
We wanted to do the cemeteries, but we couldn't get a tour for it. So it was like ghost witches, voodoo. So it was like a tour of all of the things. And it was the best tour. And our tour guide, it was his last night, so he really did it up well. And he showed us all sorts of fun things. And I did not realize. Well, I didn't realize Louisiana was built on criminal. Was populated and built by criminals and prostitutes.
And I say prostitutes because that's what they were called back know. Now we call them sex workers. But yeah, it was basically they brought prisoners over to build this swamp land up. And they decided they needed to populate it. So then they brought the prostitutes over from France. And it's like, what the crazy. It is crazy. But we had so much fun and learned so much. And we didn't really go down to Bourbon Street. I mean, we passed it, but my daughter was probably 1314 at the time. Bourbon street is not a place for that young of a person, but I definitely want to go back. I want to go see the cemeteries. I want to learn more about some of the other places we just kind of touched base on. You got pirate alley, lots of deaths and hauntings and pirate alley and stuff like that. So would love to do that. I'd love to do a tour of some of the houses. I will not go into the. Was it Lala re?
[00:28:53] Speaker C: Yeah. That's nasty.
[00:28:55] Speaker B: Yeah, they have public openings and parties and stuff in there now. I would never step foot into that.
[00:29:05] Speaker C: If you. If you want to research that, I don't know if you're going to do a thing on it. I might do a thing on. It's terrible.
[00:29:11] Speaker B: It is.
[00:29:12] Speaker C: I mean, I can't even do it justice. Let's just say a lot of people suffered and were tortured. And this woman who ran that house was, I don't know, mad scientific type.
[00:29:26] Speaker B: Tortures on those poor slaves. And then in Nola, they also have the first pharmacy in the United States. And that pharmacy, the upstairs of it, people brought their family members that had.
I can't remember if it was yellow fever or what it was at the time, but they were dropping them off there because this pharmacist was claiming that he had the cure all for them. But he reminds me a lot of hh homes where he had the trap door. So he would do all these experimentations on these people, and then he had a trap door that sat above his carriage, his horse and carriage. So these bodies would fall into his horse and carriage, and then at night he would wheel out and get rid of the bodies and then just keep taking more and more of these people in. I'm like, yeah, there is a lot of crazy things. Wonder. That town is just total paranormal.
[00:30:37] Speaker C: Exactly.
It's cool, though. I don't know if I would want to live there, but it's nice to visit.
[00:30:44] Speaker B: It's too hot. And I'm saying that as being a midwesterner that is used to humidity. It was 112 when we were there, and I had never experienced humidity like that.
We were soaking wet, just sitting in the shade. It was crazy. The only time I was cool was when we were out kind of on the swamp tours, when he'd open up the boat a little bit in the bug. I didn't realize that the swamps and the bayou and all that, I thought they were all kind of the same, but each terminology has a different meaning. Like, the swamps are one thing. I can't remember now, but the swamps were one thing and the bayou was the other. I think the bayou was more of the open water and the swamps were more. The cypress trees and the cypress trees were very cool. Definitely, definitely. If you haven't been, you have to go. And I'm going back. That is my dream trip, to go back and spend some time in New Orleans.
[00:31:50] Speaker C: Absolutely. That sounds like me too.
[00:31:52] Speaker B: Yeah. Well, now that we have completely sidetracked reiner back in, so I wanted to stick with the theme. Usually when people come on, I try to stick with the theme, kind of what their show is. And with you being the know, doing the Midwest stuff, I wanted to do that too, because I love exploring different things with the Midwest as. And so I was actually going to go on a different route with this story. I was going to go more on the Wyatt Earp side, but Jeremy introduced me to the Bullock Motel or hotel in and I have. Have you ever been to Deadwood?
[00:32:43] Speaker C: Yes, I was there once when I was a little kid. My mom dragged me there and my dad dragged me there to see all South Dakota and, okay, I was a little kid. I didn't like it.
[00:32:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:56] Speaker C: But it's really interesting. Now that I'm older, I'm like, I'm going to go back. But yes, I've been there all over South Dakota. It's a very interesting place.
[00:33:06] Speaker B: It is. I went there, I was 16 or 17, and a girlfriend of mine's family let me tag along and they did a great job of showing us all of South Dakota and a little bit of Wyoming. I mean, we did Deadwood, we did Custer State park, we did the Badlands, the Black Hills, everywhere. Like the first night that we went in, we camped in the Badlands. And I had no idea what to expect. We drove in there at night and my girlfriend and I were sleeping in a tent and they were sleeping in a camper and I unzipped our tent to walk out and I was like just blown away at the beauty of the Badlands. Absolutely gorgeous. And then staying in Custer with all the buffalo running, that was the first time I'd really been out of the state other than I went to Texas when I was twelve or 13. So the beauty was the thing that was amazing to me. But we did go to Deadwood and we did watch the reenactment of. And I said Wyatt Earp. I always do that. It's wild Bill Hickok. I always say Wyatt Earp. So I was going to do Hickok, but then Jeremy told me about this Bullock hotel, which I remember seeing when I was there, but I had no idea of how many different places are actually haunted. So we're going to go into a little history of Seth Bullock, one of the owners of the Bullock Hotel.
So Seth was born on July 23, 1849, in Canada. His birthplace is not really known because there's conflicting accounts of whether it was in Amherst or.
I looked up how to pronounce this, and I'm going to try not to screw it up.
Etobico.
Sure, it looks like, but I'm assuming it's native american, so. Etobico.
He was born to George and Agnes Finley. George Bullock was a retired british army sergeant major and a local political figure in Old Sandwich Town, which. I love that name.
Situated along the canadian and us border of the Detroit river, old Sandwich Town was founded in 1797 and holds historical prominence as one of Ontario's oldest settlements, witnessing key events in the Providence's history.
Seth's mother, who was from Scotland, added a touch of the scottish heritage to his lineage.
In 1860, Seth Bullock's dad, George, was forced to resign in his job as a county treasurer because some money went missing. And to escape. Yeah, to escape trouble in Canada, George dashed to Detroit, leaving Seth and his seven siblings alone in the old sandwich town.
So he just left the family.
He went out for a pack of smokes and never came back.
[00:36:52] Speaker C: Not cool, George.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: No. So Seth's mom had passed away during this time, leaving the kids to kind of have to fend for themselves.
In 1863, the property George owned was taken by creditors and sold at auction because he had defaulted on his mortgage and debts.
So Bullock's childhood was not really a happy one. When his father was around, he was a very strict disciplinarian. He was known to beat young Seth for little things.
Seth left. Whoa, that's a mouthful. Seth left home at 13 and then again at 16, heading to Montana to stay with his sister Jesse. She forced him to move back home. However, by 18, he had left home for good, returning to Montana, taking up residence in Helena. In 1867, Bullock became a resident of Helena, Montana, where he unsuccessfully ran for a territorial legislator.
He was.
Oh, my goodness, I'm tongue tying everything.
Subsequently elected as the Republican to the territorial senate, and he served from 1871 to 1872. And he also helped create Yellowstone National park, which I thought was really cool.
[00:38:26] Speaker C: That is cool.
[00:38:27] Speaker B: Yeah. So in 1873, he was also elected sheriff of Lewis and county.
Lewis and Clark County, Montana.
During his tenure as sheriff, Sal Watson had stolen a horse and engaged in a gunfight with Bullock, in which Bullock was slightly wounded in the shoulder. Watson was then taken into custody, and as Watson was being prepared to be hung, a mob appeared and they scared off the executioner.
So Bullock, being the badass that he is, climbed on top of the scaffold and pulled the lever himself, sending Watson to his death.
Bullock then held off the mob with his shotgun. And this incident was recreated in the pilot episode of HBO's television series Deadwood, which you had asked me, I think, before we started recording, if I watched that, and I haven't, but I want to now. I love old west stuff.
[00:39:41] Speaker C: Yeah. By the way, for all the audience out there, including you, Tracy, it is extremely graphic.
[00:39:48] Speaker B: Is it?
[00:39:49] Speaker C: They do not hold anything back. Well, the, when they're doing like surgeries and stuff like that and stuff, you got to remember you didn't have a room. You basically sat someone down on the table. Bite on this stick and I'm going to take a knife and I'm going to dig that bullet out of you.
[00:40:11] Speaker B: Here's some whiskey to try to take the edge.
[00:40:13] Speaker C: Yeah, right. Here's a shot of whiskey. Maybe you got some whiskey?
[00:40:18] Speaker B: Yeah. No, I cannot imagine.
[00:40:22] Speaker C: Great show, though. It's a great show.
[00:40:24] Speaker B: Yeah. I'm scared enough to have surgery with anesthesia, let alone without biting on a stick.
No, thank you. Well, soon after this event, Seth partnered with Solomon, who's known as Saul. He goes by Saul, so Solomon, Saul, star to form the star and Bullock auctioneers and commissioners merchants, they set up a shop in Helena, Montana, or, excuse me, Helena, Montana, where Seth was also married to Martha Ecklis in 1874. She was his childhood sweetheart. And soon after they had a daughter.
In 1876, they decided that an untapped market for hardware existed in the gold rush town of Deadwood in the Dakota territory.
Before leaving for Deadwood, South Dakota, Seth sent his wife and baby girl back to her family home in Michigan until he was settled in the new area. Back then, Deadwood was crazy, lawless and insane.
So it was very wise of him to not bring his wife and baby daughter.
And so then they decided to move their hardware store from Helena, Montana to Deadwood. They traveled by an ox drawn wagon piled high with mining equipment, dutch ovens, frying pans, chamber pots. I mean, I can just see everything just, like, shaking as they're going down the terrain.
[00:42:10] Speaker C: So we're both parents and we've taken long trips with our kids.
Okay, we're in a car, right? And we can pull over and get a snack and we can pull over and go to a hotel or a motel. Back then, it was nothing. Like you said, rickety Rick. Oh, by the way, Indians might kill you. Robbers might kill you. A bear might kill you. You might fall in a sinkhole. You might get a disease and die on the trail.
[00:42:42] Speaker B: This is some rough rain as well. It is not flat.
[00:42:49] Speaker C: It's not. Like I said, it's a rainy thing. And you're telling your husband, honey, pull over because it's snowing really bad. We'll get a room, right? No, you got to keep going.
[00:43:02] Speaker B: I don't know if you ever played the game. The Oregon trail.
[00:43:06] Speaker C: Yes.
[00:43:08] Speaker B: You died of dysentery.
That was not far from the truth. I mean, they were leaving family members behind left and right.
So they had their oxtron wagon piled with everything that they could think of that people would need.
When they arrived in Deadwood. They set up a tent and began to auction their equipment and supplies off to the highest bidders. And that was the beginning of their successful hardware store business in Deadwood. And there's a little bit, this next thing, there's a little bit of contradictory. I found some people say that they arrived the day before and some people say it was the day after, but literally it was within a short time frame from when wild Bill Hickok was killed in the saloon.
He was killed by Jack McCall. And if anybody's not familiar with it, McCall shot Hickok in the back of the head while he sat playing poker. McCall was later found not guilty by an impromptu camp court. And when he was released, after which he promptly left town, he was later retried, found guilty, and executed.
And at this time, there was not really any law enforcement in Deadwood. And there's different accounts on why McCall killed Hickok. The one account is because he was mad that Hickok gave him money after he lost all of his money and told him to go get lunch. And then there was also accusations that he had slept with his sister or something.
And Hickok never sat with his back to the door and the person would not trade seats with him. So this one time, he sat with his back to the door and he got killed. And then there's the famous hand that he had, the aces and eight.
We'll be back after these messages.
[00:45:23] Speaker C: All right, I think I hacked in.
[00:45:25] Speaker B: We're on the air.
[00:45:26] Speaker C: Security's outside.
[00:45:28] Speaker B: But how's my air?
[00:45:29] Speaker C: It's a radio station.
You guys hear about the beyond the shadows podcast with Ryan and Scott? You guys into paranormal? What about true crime? How about ufos and cryptids? We also have mad hauntings. We got security. No, we don't.
[00:45:45] Speaker B: We're not big enough to need it yet? No, we got security.
[00:45:48] Speaker C: Hey, what are you guys doing? Get out of here.
Listen to the beyond the Shadows podcast.
[00:46:02] Speaker B: So, yeah, I watched that reenactment. It was pretty intense.
[00:46:10] Speaker C: Yeah. On the pilot of Deadwood. They do that, do they? Okay, so that's the pilot.
The entire pilot is about what you were bringing up there?
[00:46:20] Speaker B: Most of it, yeah. So it definitely touches on the raw history of Deadwood.
[00:46:27] Speaker C: Yes, it does.
[00:46:28] Speaker B: Yeah.
So like I said, there was a huge demand for law enforcement and it grew following Hickok's murder. And Bullock's background made him the logical choice for Deadwood's first sheriff. However, he was not elected to the position, but rather was appointed by then governor Pennington by the Dakota territory. In his tenure as appointed sheriff lasted approximately nine months. And during his tenure as the appointed sheriff, Bullock took his job very seriously. He deputized several residents and was tackling the job of civilizing the camp, meaning the town.
Despite, or perhaps because of a reputation for fearlessness and an uncompromising nature, Bullock managed to task without killing a single person.
He was reported to not even need to carry his gun.
His grandson said that he would outstaire a mad cobra or a rogue elephant.
So it was said that he could also enforce the law just by being in town. He was quite the badass.
[00:48:03] Speaker C: Yeah, that's quite a badass.
[00:48:05] Speaker B: Yeah.
So eventually, Seth and Saul built their hardware store on the property that they had set up shop on in 1876.
And from 1876 to 1894, the building housed the hardware store. The store was a single story building that was said to house a blacksmith in the back. And the lower level had its own entrance from Wall street for access when the basement was excavated during the last remodeling. This is in recent times, they discovered an old forge that included several ox shoes. So this confirmed the rumor of the blacksmith and as well as the parking area with a turnaround to service the ox teams. And they also nicknamed the area the Bull Flats.
So I thought that was kind of cool. That's what it was said to be. And then when they did the recent renovations, they actually found some of the old equipment.
So at one point, Seth was bringing in a horse thief called Crazy Steve back to Deadwood for trial, and he encountered a man who was the current sheriff of Madura, North Dakota. This man was Theodore Roosevelt.
He would eventually become, and as we know, he eventually becomes president. Seth and Roosevelt became great friends. And eventually Seth joined Roosevelt's famous rough riders.
Seth was also named the captain of a troop in Grigsby. Cowboys regiment.
Because of the end of the Spanish American War, the troops never really left the training camp. But this did give Seth the opportunity to carry a title of captain for the remainder of his life. And in 1905, Seth formed a similar group in Deadwood called the Cowboys. How ironic.
So let's see.
We're going to go back.
[00:50:19] Speaker C: By the way, I love all the nicknames really quickly. I love all the nicknames like Crazy Steve, one horse Bill, Limpy Fred, or something.
[00:50:29] Speaker B: They all had nicknames. And I don't know, I don't think I covered this in here. But there was talk about how Seth also went on a chase after James when. So this is something that you don't know. But I lived in Northfield, Minnesota, for many years, from about 14 till I was around 34, I think. And the Jesse James gang was actually kind of semi defeated in Northfield. They shot a couple of their gang members and stuff there. And when Jesse was. I did not know this part of the story until I came across it. When I was researching. When Jesse was fleeing from the Northfield raid, Seth Bullock was actually in pursuit of him. And Jesse had jumped a gorge, and a lot of people did not follow his. On his horse. He jumped this gorge and they did not follow him. So that's how he eluded Bullock and the team and stuff. So I thought that was kind of cool because that linked back to the town that I used to live in.
[00:51:47] Speaker C: Nice.
[00:51:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So now we're going to go back a little bit in time. There was a fire in 1879 in Deadwood that destroyed much of the town. And the fire at the hardware store destroyed the majority of the building with the exception of the foundation and the exterior walls. They rebuilt it. And in 1894, another fire resulted in the destruction of the interior of the building again. So, changing tactics, bullock and his partner, Saul Starr, decided to build Deadwood's finest hotel over the original store and warehouse, hauling in native pink and white sandstone from Andrew's quarry in Boulder Canyon. Building the italianist style hotel. It boasted a restaurant that could seat 100 people and offered such delicacies as pheasant and lobster when it was complete. Yeah, lobster in South Dakota can't be that fresh in that time frame. That was.
How are they getting the lobster there?
Yes.
So the large lobby featured red velvet carpeting, brass chandeliers, oak trim, and a Steinway grand piano upstairs. The 63 rooms were furnished with oak dressers and brass beds, and each floor had a single bathroom, which was pretty common for that time. So, like a shared bathroom, it had a library and a parlor. And in no time, the hotel was the most sought after luxury hotel of its time.
In 1900, they purchased a small building attached to the hotel and turned it into a gentleman's bar.
And we won't go into how sexist that is.
Seth Bullock later died of cancer in September 23 of 1919 at his ranch near Bell Forge, South Dakota. He was buried on the high trail to the white. To the. He was buried on the high trail to the white rocks above Mount Mariah Cemetery. And this is what I thought was really cool. The gravesite was facing towards Mount Roosevelt across the gulch, which was selected for its view of Friendship tower, a tower that Roosevelt had built for bullock shortly before he died. This view has since been obstructed by a half a century of grown ponderosa pines. But I thought that was really cool because Roosevelt built this tower to symbolize their friendship. And I think they both died within the same year.
[00:55:02] Speaker C: Oh, interesting.
[00:55:03] Speaker B: But, yeah, they were like best of friends. And there's so much more about his different political things that he went into and the different titles that he held and did, but I didn't want to go too deep into it.
[00:55:19] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[00:55:20] Speaker B: So now we'll get into some of the fun stuff. The haunting of the Bullock Motel.
According to dozens of reports, the Bullock Hotel is very haunted and very active, and the hotel's original owner, Seth Bullock, continues to play host at his beloved hotel. According to both staff and guests, all manner of strange occurrences has happened at this historic hotel.
Reports include the feelings of strong paranormal presence inside several rooms, in the second and third floored hallways, in the restaurant, and in Seth's cellar. Others have reported seeing tall, ghostly figures of bullock in various areas of the hotel, including the restaurant and the basement. Apparently, Seth's ghost wants to ensure that the staff is working hard as paranormal events tend to increase. When the staff members stand idle, when they're whistling or just humming a tune, Seth shows up and basically tells them to get to work.
Plates and glasses have been known to shake and take flight in the restaurant.
The lights and appliances turn on and off, seemingly on their own accord.
Many guests have reported hearing their name called out by a male voice when no one is present, or they were tapped on the shoulder by an unseen hand.
Others have heard whistling, and many report sounds of footsteps in the hallways when it's empty and there's no one there, which that would creep me out.
[00:57:08] Speaker C: Yeah. By the way, can we go back to making them go back to work? Which I think is great.
You're kind of just leaning, whatever. And suddenly you're like, something taps you, pushes you.
Right? Yeah. You're like, okay, I'll clean up the plates.
[00:57:32] Speaker B: I won't stop.
[00:57:33] Speaker C: I won't go.
That'd be great.
[00:57:39] Speaker B: We have an episode of the Palmer House in Sock Center, Minnesota, that, well, as this recording comes out, it'll probably be released, like, three, four weeks ago. But it talks about how this employee would. One of her jobs was to set the tables every night in the restaurant. And she would set the tables, and then she'd go back into the restaurant and all of the silverware and everything would be, like, all messed up. And she got to the point where she set it once at night, and then she fixed it before she left in the morning and hoping that it would still look okay when the next person came in. But how frustrated. It's like, dude, I am trying to work, and you're messing up my work.
[00:58:26] Speaker C: Not funny.
[00:58:27] Speaker B: No. And you could just see the ghost probably sitting in the corner going, I love it. I love the playfulness. And with the Palmer house, what I've learned is the ghosts that do reside there, it's a very friendly, non malevolent.
But they said, depending on what people are doing, sometimes the energy will turn dark. And the paranormal team that I was talking about, they will go in there, and they'll cleanse it and get the energy back to being a positive energy. And the owner of the hotel, Kelly, does not allow Ouija boards. And if she finds out you have a Ouija board, she'll literally throw it out. The.
Yeah, they try to keep it very clean, and they don't want people antagonizing the ghosts because. Would you want to be antagonized in your home every single night?
No wonder they go crazy.
[00:59:40] Speaker C: Yeah. That reminds me of the lemp mansion in St. Louis, Missouri, which I did a piece on.
[00:59:46] Speaker B: I've heard know.
[00:59:48] Speaker C: Yeah. And they have a restaurant there, and same thing happens. People mess. The ghosts mess around with the silverware and other things like that. And they've had trouble keeping people, obviously.
But I remember there's a waitress who'd worked there for years that just got used to it. Like, she says she'll go into work and she'll be like, hi, Bill, or Joe or whatever, like, please, I got to get some things done. Could you please not bother me today? And she said, most of the time, they don't. If you talk to them nicely and explain, hey, we're having a big party. I need to get this done. So could you please not do that. However, when she's training a new employee and they see a glass floating across the room, don't pay attention. Then they're like, yeah. She's like, it's all right, Bill. It's fine.
[01:00:44] Speaker B: He's just playing with you.
[01:00:47] Speaker C: Yeah, it's usually where the employee quits.
[01:00:52] Speaker B: Yeah, I would.
Maybe, maybe not. I'm trying to change my perspective on being scared of these things. I'm trying to not.
It's a slow burn, but I hear you, Tracy. We actually are going to Jenny, the lady we interviewed from the Palmer house actually said that she would go there and do an investigation with us.
So we're trying to line that up, which I think would be fun, but I told her no guarantees that I won't go running out the door.
[01:01:29] Speaker C: I hear you.
[01:01:30] Speaker B: And my sister wants us to go stay at the Roth house in.
[01:01:39] Speaker C: One.
[01:01:39] Speaker B: That was the first possession, the first possession in the United States where I'm trying to remember the story now. It's been a while since I researched it.
This lady passed, or young girl passed away, and one of their neighbors ends up getting possessed by her ghost and then goes and lives with the family and stuff. But it's an old victorian mansion. Yeah, the 18 hundreds were crazy time crazy. Just because your neighbor said that she's possessed by your daughter, then you take her in and the family lets you. I don't understand all of that, but it's an old victorian house that was just falling apart, and some guy bought it and renovated it back to its original glory. And it's now an Airbnb that you can rent out. And people rent it out to do investigations. Other people rent it out and have no idea that it's even haunted.
So that kind of tells me, if people are not having experiences, how haunted is it, really?
[01:02:51] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[01:02:52] Speaker B: But I suppose it all depends on how open you are or how well you can explain things away. But absolutely in this story that I will get to, there's a part in here that I'll have to try to remember. I watched a couple different ghost hunter shows on this, and one of them was, I call them bagel bites.
Zach Baggins.
I learned that term of endearment off of a bigger podcast that I used to listen to, and ever since they said that, that's all. I never call them Baggins. I always just unconscious. It's bagel bites now. But I watched his show on doing their investigation of this hotel, and there's an employee that we're going to touch base on, but I'll get to that when it's coming up here.
Cool.
Let's see.
Where did we leave off?
[01:04:03] Speaker C: Bothering the employees.
[01:04:06] Speaker B: Yes. I think my story moved on me.
Well, basically, residents to authors to employees or whatever, basically say that Bullock's ghost is still very active in the building, but his intentions don't seem to be malicious at all.
He's more of a prankster. He likes to move chairs and other objects until a brave employee will stand up to him and tell him to stop. And then he'll usually listen, and he just seems to want to make sure the employees are always working hard and that his patrons are happy.
So I came across this story of these parents that couldn't find their son, and they're frantically looking all over the hotel. They search everywhere, and they're not able to find their son anywhere. So they return to the room and find him just in there, happy as a clam, healthy, safe. He told them that he left to get a soda and got lost, but a nice man helped him find his room. And when the family went to check out the next morning, the boy identified the helpful man, pointing to a portrait of.
[01:05:39] Speaker C: Wow.
[01:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. And Bullock is very. If you don't know what he looks, you know, a handsome man, but he's got one of those big Sam Elliott mustaches. Huge mustache. So very.
In today's time frame, there's not mustache. People don't have mustaches like that.
There are also many stories of employees and hotel guests that they claim to smell lilac roses, and cigar smoke is often noticed throughout the hotel, with the cigar smoke smell being very strong. In room 211, which used to be Seth Bullock's room, the cleaning staff also reports that their cleaning carts that they use to carry supplies between the rooms will often be moved to another location from where they left it.
They also report, after they change a roll of toilet paper that they'll go back into the room and find the paper scattered throughout the room with the empty spool on.
I'd be like, no, stop it. You want me to work, but you're making more work for me. What is it? Where's the fine line?
[01:07:03] Speaker C: Yeah, I heard, too, that he messes around with alarm clocks. So people will set their alarm clocks for like 730, and then all of a sudden we'll go off like four in the morning and they'll be like, dad.
[01:07:19] Speaker B: I had that happen to me when I was in high school. Some little prankster thought it'd be funny to change my alarm clock, and it was wintertime, so I didn't think anything of it. When it was dark, when I woke up and I was waiting and waiting for my boyfriend to pick me up because he drove me to school every day, he wasn't coming. Wasn't coming. And I'm like, looking at my clock and I'm like, I'm going to have to walk. So I called his house to find out if he had left, and his dad answered the phone and he's like, tracy, do you know what time it is? I'm like, yeah, it's like 730. He's like, no, it is 230 in the morning.
Come on.
But, yeah, because somebody thought it'd be funny to change my alarm on me.
[01:08:09] Speaker C: Yeah.
[01:08:11] Speaker B: And then it didn't even affect me. It affected other households as well.
[01:08:15] Speaker C: Yeah. Right.
[01:08:17] Speaker B: So at the bullock, they have a notebook, which I think is pretty common for these haunted hotels, for guests to be able to write their encounters, sightings, or experiences in which I think is cool. I would love. I think people should publish those so people could buy them and just read them.
[01:08:39] Speaker C: Yeah, it'd be great.
[01:08:40] Speaker B: A lot of people report that they see a tall, ghostly figure in many areas of the hotel, including the restaurant. At one time, a staircase connected the bar and the restaurant to the floors above, and it was located behind the bar. And on one account, a bartender quit his job and fled after seeing the ghost of bullock standing at the end of the bar.
Perhaps he had traveled from his room above to check on the due diligence of the working staff below, which was said to be something he did on a regular basis, which we've covered.
[01:09:19] Speaker C: Right.
[01:09:21] Speaker B: So aside from the apparitions we said before, plates and glasses are known to shake or fly. Furniture is moved, the appliances will turn on, as well as showers in the guest rooms.
How frustrating would that be?
There's disembodied voices, footsteps, and the hotel does offer a ghost tour for those that want to hear more of the stories and witness some paranormal activity.
And it says that there is just never a dull moment at the legendary Bullock Hotel.
So the basement of the hotel is named Seth Cellar, and at one time, it served as a smallpox ward, according to many residents or so it housed many sick residents from towns.
Numerous reports revolve around sightings of a little girl named Sarah and her mother, who was a local prostitute. Both had been patients at the makeshift hotel, or, excuse me, makeshift hospital in the hotel. Sarah reportedly watched her mother die just before she herself was taken by the disease.
There's a story from an employee who had worked at the hotel for many years. And claimed that while they were preparing for a party on the lower level and filling up helium balloons, the balloons would cling to the ceiling, but occasionally one would come down and then rise up as if somebody were tugging on it and playing with it. And perhaps it was little Sarah playing a prank. But that account also claims that at one point, all of the balloons popped at the same time during the.
I'm gone.
[01:11:29] Speaker C: I hear you. Same with me. I'm out.
[01:11:31] Speaker B: Tracy. Sized hole in the wall next to John. Sized hole in the wall.
[01:11:36] Speaker C: Yeah, we would both be.
Yeah, we're exactly. Exactly like a cartoon.
[01:11:44] Speaker B: Yes. And there's also been accounts of the piano located, which is now located in the basement. People would hear it being played, but there was nobody downstairs.
And so now, like I said, I watched a few different shows on this haunting of the Bullock Hotel. So I came across this old episode of unsolved mysteries. And in this episode, it was so fun to hear that theme song and to see stacks in his trench coat.
[01:12:26] Speaker C: And trench coat coming out of a.
[01:12:28] Speaker B: Fog or whatever, or whatever weird area that he's in.
[01:12:32] Speaker C: Weird thing.
[01:12:33] Speaker B: He just enters the frame in this scene.
I don't think he actually probably went to Deadwood, but it was like a westerny type scenery.
I just love stacks. There was nobody better.
He talks about a few of the incidents that employees at the hotel experienced.
Norm Stevens was one of the employees. He was a slot machine supervisor at the hotel. And he says that the one morning he was working in the basement when a mysterious shadow fell across the wall. It was a figure of a man. But when Norm turned around, the shadow know they have their reenactments. And he's walking up to the office door, and he's, like, entering. It looks like a code to get into the door, but it actually looks like an alarm box, like an alarm system box. So it's kind of funny, but you see this shadow just.
And they do really good. I love the old reenactments. They did a pretty good job for their time.
And then a few weeks later, the operations manager. This name kills me. Joey George.
Joey George.
[01:13:53] Speaker C: Joey George.
[01:13:54] Speaker B: Yeah. Had his own ghostly encounter. He claimed that when he walked by the bar after closing time, all of the stools were lined up in a row. Joey stepped into the office and then heard an unusual noise behind him. He returned to the bar, and all of the stools had been moved. But both of these mysterious incidents paled in comparison with another hotel's worker, that he experienced it in 1989. So this is the one I was talking about. So I've heard this guy, he didn't tell the story on here. The manager of the hotel told it on unsolved mysteries, but he was on bagel bites, the actual guy that experienced this. And he basically saw an apparition, full body apparition of a cowboy, a man. And he was leaning, arms crossed. He described him to how he was dressed.
His pants were tucked into his boots, everything. And it was like the old school western style, like back in the lawless days. And it scared him so much that he ended up quitting his job. But years later, he came back, and now he's very sensitive, and he communicates with the kids that are in the basement, the kids in the hotel, basically the ones that died from the smallpox and stuff. And in the bagel bites episode, it's really funny because they're talking about Zach Baggins is interviewing him, and he's talking with the little boy that's there, and he's asking him questions and the boys answering, but at the same time, they get EVP recordings of the boy's answers. So it was kind of cool. That was like, really conclusive evidence.
But anyway, they get to a point where Zach and this guy shake hands, and the guy starts walking away. And he's mean with ghost adventures. It's very dramatic and dramatized. He's like, my hand is just on fire. And then all of a sudden, Zach and this guy were like, they couldn't be near each other. They both just wanted to kill each other. And he said that the guy that worked at the hotel said that there's something attached to you that is just not right. And then Zach's like, oh, great.
But he keeps trying to talk to the guy. I'm like, just leave him alone.
[01:16:59] Speaker C: Yeah, right.
[01:17:01] Speaker B: But, yeah, they went and investigated the whole.
They did the saloon that Hickok was killed at, and they did the opera house, and then they did the hotel and stuff. And I usually try not know. I'll watch it just because you get a little history. And sometimes there will be some good stuff, but I don't like how they antagonize. And a lot of it's so dramatized, know, unsolved mysteries. Just did a beautiful job at it. And I watched a couple other ones that were really good, too. So anyway, that's where that guy, he kind of came in on a few different shows.
So Robert Stack in his voiceover, goes on to say that the people of Deadwood always assumed that it was the ghost of Seth Bullock who was haunting the hotel. Then in April of 91, apparent confirmation came from a most unlikely source 5000 miles away. I hear his voice in my head as I'm reading this, but I can't do voice.
And he said that from 5000 miles away, a man who claims to be a psychic said he began receiving messages from beyond the grave. By pure coincidence. The psychic's name was Sandy Bullock.
Sandy said that occasionally various people would pop through and he thought that it was perhaps that it was a family member, distant family member or ancestor that was coming to say hello.
So he rather dismissed it that it was something different.
And then we get Stack's voiceover again telling us that the spirit of Seth Bullock did not go away. Sandy claims that Seth communicated with him, or Sandy claims that Seth communicated with him through a native american guide who warned the people of Deadwood that a period of lawlessness loomed in the horizon and it could happen in 1993. And he repeated it a few times and then followed it up with a beware.
So this psychic, Sandy, said that this warning just seemed to be a little urgent. So he immediately wrote an open letter to the proprietors of the Bullock Hotel.
Sandy said, I thought if I write to someone just in general in this place called Deadwood that they would just think I'm a nutty old englishman and would forget it and throw it away.
A few weeks later, Sandy's letter arrived at the Bullock Hotel, which was undergoing extensive renovations at the time. Mary, the head of hotel at the time, said that all of the information at this time, as I read it, she thought to herself, well, he probably found a book someplace on Deadwood, read it and wrote to me. And mind you, at this time the Internet wasn't a thing either. It was so. But at the very bottom of the letter, it mentioned that Seth said that he can't haunt the hotel right now because all of the banging that's going on. And I thought to myself, well, it's driving me crazy too.
But he also said that he'd be back and you'll know it's old Seth, quote unquote. And that's when her hair stood up on the back of her neck because that's what her aunt's pet name was for Seth. Anytime something strange would happen, Jerry, her aunt would say, old Seth is up to his tricks again.
So he kind know proved his point because Seth can't haunt it right now because of all of the banging renovations and then the old Seth. So he knew that these things needed to be said for them to believe again. There was no way that he would know from across the pond that they had renovations going on.
So a local journalist, Rena Webb, was intrigued and decided to write back to Sandy Bullock. And in this letter, she said to him, I am categorized, I suppose, neither as a believer or a non believer. I will treat your story with the utmost respect. However, I have a lot of readers who will be totally skeptical about your story. Because of this skepticism, I would like to pose to you a test question.
Who was the well known person who was a close friend of Seth Bullock? And how is Bullock's grave positioned in relation to that friendship?
When she received his letter, in response to her test question, he said, tall trees now block the view from his old bones, but Teddy and him still meet in the afterlife. And she said, whoa, she got the goose pimples. And she continues to get them every time she thinks about it, because, again, they wouldn't have known. There's no way that he could have known about that.
[01:22:51] Speaker C: Yeah, there's no way.
[01:22:52] Speaker B: So Rena believes that the message refers to the stand of pine trees that now obstructs the view of Theodore Roseman's monument from Seth Bullock's gravesite.
It's a story that was not well known. And there's no way Sandy Bullock, sitting in Dorset, England, could have researched this. It's just not possible.
There's too much evidence of Seth's presence in this town, in particular at the Bullock Hotel, to discount it. Perhaps other people might feel differently. All I know is the evidence seemed to point very strongly in the direction of the sheriff, Seth Bullock, still being on the job in Deadwood, South Dakota today.
So I thought that was really cool. I love the fact that he's just there making sure people are working. He's not evil. Well, according to bagelbytes, there was some interactions, and then he got pushed by whatever. But I love the story. Good story. I love that. It just seemed light and fun. He was a prankster, but get your work done.
[01:24:10] Speaker C: Work hard.
[01:24:12] Speaker B: Yes, I built this thing. I traveled across the Oregon trail to get here.
Not literally, but. Well, probably. I'm sure that path was part of the Oregon trail.
[01:24:27] Speaker C: Well, it's bad enough wherever he traveled, we know, right?
[01:24:33] Speaker B: But I thought it was pretty. A really cool story. Like I said, I was going to go more on the other haunting, but this one, once Jeremy told me about it, I got caught into a rabbit hole.
I did, too. It was a fun one. It was one that's not very. I was still probably scared.
[01:25:00] Speaker C: Well, yeah. I mean, if you see things floating or an apparition appears in front of you, of course, right?
[01:25:08] Speaker B: Yeah. And full body apparitions, that takes a lot of energy.
You don't see that a lot.
[01:25:15] Speaker C: Yes, it does. That's just interesting to me, too. I check the room rates, by the way, if you want to stay there. Very reasonable.
Very reasonable. Are they so just for like a double bed and it would just be you. It's like $50 a night, which is super reasonable compared to. But if you wanted a king size bed in one of their suite rooms with a jacuzzi, that is $130 a night.
[01:25:51] Speaker B: That's pretty similar to the Palmer house.
We're trying to stay there. But the downfall with the Palmer houses, in the wintertime, they're only open for slut periods of time. And if you stay on a weekend, you have to stay two nights. And Jeremy and I own our own business beside podcasting. And to have two nights away is really hard, especially when we have dogs.
[01:26:19] Speaker C: Sure.
[01:26:21] Speaker B: And the one thing I forgot to touch base on, I was going to loop back to this, and I didn't put it in my notes.
So, in 1993, the thing that they believe was what block was warning them about is they were talking about raising the maximum bet in Deadwood for gambling. Because right now I believe the maximum bet is $5, and they were talking about raising it to 100 or higher. There was a couple of different articles that said a couple of different things, but the people of Deadwood voted it down, which is probably a good thing, because what he could have been warning him about is if they did raise that, it could have brought a lot more different casinos, different people, different characters.
Yes. And I worked in casinos for many years of my life. I was a blackjack dealer for probably close to four or five years.
And I saw some stuff and experienced stuff. I had my hand smashed into the table by a person that I took a lot of money from in high stakes. And that's when I lived in Hinckley. And later I moved to Prior Lake, where Mystic Lake casino is. And I knew that guy that I dealt to in Hinckley actually lived in the metro area. So I knew it was a matter of time before I ran into him because he got 86 from Grand Casino Hinckley and shit. About three years after dealing at Mystic, I came up to the table and I saw this guy, and I knew it. And he was playing on the floor, so not in high stakes this time. And I was dealing on the floor, and the table was winning. I came up, started just the table, turned the burn card turned the table, and he was getting madder and madder and madder. And I just kept watching him. And all of a sudden, I went to go take his money, and he comes up with his hand, puts his hand up, and he's like, are you having flashbacks from Hinckley yet, Tracy? And I was like, oh, son of a bitch. Floor. Give me off.
[01:29:00] Speaker C: Security.
[01:29:04] Speaker B: But I witnessed somebody driving through the front doors of Mystic Lake and getting out and walking around in his underwear. I've seen people jump the table, grab chips. I've seen tables flipped. We had major storms. So we've dealt with, like, we had everybody in the casino, in the basement of the casino. And there's so many crazy things that I've seen working at.
It was a totally different life.
So I've got all stories about dealing.
[01:29:40] Speaker C: To, I have to hook up with you and figure that out because me and my buddy go to Vegas every other year. We just do it as kind of just get out and just try to do whatever. That's just a friendly thing to do. We don't stay that long or anything. And, man, I'm not very good at blackjack. I tend to lose a lot, so I just kind of just stopped playing it altogether.
[01:30:04] Speaker B: Yeah.
The biggest thing is if everybody on the table is playing the same, then they're playing it the right way. But it's all in the cards.
If I dumped, it was very rare. I don't know why, but I was always a hot dealer, and I'm not hot. And meaning that I would have a hard time giving away money. But then there's times where I would try to close the table. Like there was a shift in the blackjack world that we called eight to forever. You worked eight to four, but you couldn't go home until your table was closed.
So there was times where I was trying to get people off of my table, and that's when I would just dump and dump and dump.
Sure, we get tips and stuff like that, but we share. Our tips are all pooled and then divided. So we literally made. When I was dealing blackjack, I literally made $5.25 an hour.
And then your tips would bring your wages way up.
Sure, if I had to take a vacation, I had vacation time, but my vacation time was at $5.25 an hour. So you'll be vacation.
Well, before we wrap up here, I'm just going to mention the sources I unsolved mysteries on YouTube. I got some information from timberj.com, stories on Deadwood's historic and haunted Bullock Hotel.
I did some. Got some information from our old friend Wikipedia and another website, legends of.
So.
But thank you so much for joining us. Or I say us. I'm so used to that. Joining me.
[01:32:04] Speaker C: Yes.
It was great time. I really enjoyed it. Yeah, we'll have to have Jeremy on next time and maybe do some true crime.
Yeah, I already told these stories on another episode, but maybe down the line I can tell my Ed Gein story and my Jeffrey Dahmer story, which they're not my stories, but they're friends of the family who have interacted personally with two of those serial killers, Ed Dean and Mr. Dahmer.
[01:32:45] Speaker B: That'S for sure.
[01:32:48] Speaker C: Frightening stories that you hear that you just go, how could these people, like, I don't get, like, how could you be with a serial killer knowing they did what they did and have to really quickly? One was a head nurse where Ed Gein was staying after he was arrested, and he was in a mental institution. So she took care of him on a daily basis, was in his room. And then the Jeffrey Dahmer story is about a. Yeah. Jeffrey Dahmer's story was about my friend who was my cousin in Milwaukee whose friend was gay, and Jeffrey Dahmer tried to pick him up and take him back to his apartment. And if you remember anything about Jeffrey Dahmer's apartment.
Not nice things.
[01:33:41] Speaker B: No, no, not at Gein.
If I remember correctly, he was extremely intelligent, too.
I think his iq was, like, off the charts.
[01:33:58] Speaker C: He turned Jeffrey Dahmer.
[01:34:00] Speaker B: Yes.
[01:34:02] Speaker C: Jeffrey Dahmer had an iq of 145.
[01:34:05] Speaker B: Wow.
[01:34:06] Speaker C: Which is pretty good. Yeah, really quickly about Ed Geen. Yeah, really quickly about Ed Geen. Tracy, he babysitted most of the kids in Plainfield, Wisconsin.
[01:34:19] Speaker B: Oh, my God.
[01:34:23] Speaker C: Yes.
Never would hurt a kid.
And he was a great babysitter. Parents growing up.
[01:34:34] Speaker B: And I don't remember a lot of my babysitters.
I'll go to someplace in the town that I grew up in. I used to babysit you, blah, blah, blah, blah. But could you imagine? Oh, my God. Ed Gein used to babysit me or even Dahmer. I'm sure Dahmer babysat sometimes.
[01:34:54] Speaker C: Yeah. There's some stories out there, people now who tell those stories, like, oh, yeah, Ed and I used to play all the time together and.
Unbelievable.
[01:35:06] Speaker B: Yeah, it's. Well, and I always used to know, growing up, when we grew up, I was like, we had the best childhood.
We were free. We were able to do this and that and the other thing. And you never stayed inside because if you stayed inside, you'd have to do chores. And you were always outside and outside playing and with your friends and meeting up places. And I'm like, we really had an amazing childhood. But then after I started doing the podcasting stuff, I was like, how did we survive our childhood? Because that was the worst time for kidnappings and serial killers.
[01:35:48] Speaker C: Correct.
[01:35:49] Speaker B: But we were oblivious. We were just out doing whatever.
[01:35:56] Speaker C: Well, thank you so much for having me on the show. I had a blast. If you ever need me to come back on, I would definitely have you back on too, for sure.
[01:36:05] Speaker B: And like you said, we'll have to get Jeremy involved this time.
Give him lots of vitamin C.
[01:36:14] Speaker C: Sounds good.
[01:36:15] Speaker B: Thanks, John. Have a good night.
[01:36:18] Speaker C: You too, Tracy. Thank you.
[01:36:20] Speaker B: Bye.
Well, folks, that's a wrap on today's wild adventure. We hope you enjoyed saddling up with us and John from dairyland frats to explore the ghostly legends of Seth Bullock and the Bullock Hotel.
[01:36:36] Speaker A: Thanks for joining us, partners. Remember, if you had a hoot and a holler, don't forget to hit that like button. Subscribe on YouTube and leave us a review on Apple and Spotify, and keep.
[01:36:49] Speaker B: Your eyes peeled for more thrilling tales and collaborations coming your way. We've got some spooktacular surprises in store, so stay tuned to total conundrum.
[01:37:00] Speaker A: Until next time, folks, keep your spirits high, your boots on the ground. This is Jeremy and Tracy signing off, wishing you a ghostly good time.
[01:37:09] Speaker B: Yee haw.
[01:37:10] Speaker C: Yee haw.
[01:37:12] Speaker A: Thanks for hanging out with us here at Total Conundrum. Please make sure to check out our website and
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